Supermarket Challenge Week 4 - Back to Aldi!

This week we (@yesdaveitsvegan and me @louisamoss) decided to go back to Aldi because I wrongly thought that they had tomatoes on offer.  Karen @yesdaveitsvegan needed courgettes and they did have them on offer in both stores, so we both got them!  Karen tells me that courgettes are good in porridge.  Hmmm, I thought.  I'll try it and report back soon!

The super six was pretty good this week and we both made good use of it.  However, we changed things up a bit with our list this week so that we were buying some vegan store cupboard staples.  It was good fun as always - I'm sure the security guards in the Dublin and Essex stores wonder what we are doing filming ourselves picking things up off the shelves!

Our shopping list this week was:

Item	UK £	IE €	UK price in Euro	Price difference
Spicy bean burgers	1.15	1.69	1.34	0.35
Soya Milk	0.55	0.75	0.64	0.11
Soyummy Yogurt	0.85	1.49	0.99	0.5
Ice-cream	1.99	2.49	2.33	0.16
Spinach	0.99	0.85	1.16	-0.31
Garlic	0.55	0.79	0.64	0.15
Courgettes	0.69	0.49	0.81	-0.32
Onions	0.57	0.59	0.67	-0.08
Potatoes	1.15	2.99	1.34	1.65
Cabbage	0.49	0.99	0.57	0.42
Lentils	0.99	0.79	1.16	-0.37
Strawberries	2.69	3.39	3.14	0.25
	12.66	17.3	14.79	2.51

 

I found this interesting because I’m a bit of a nerd like that.  Some of the items that I consider essential in my kitchen like split red lentils (honestly when everyone else was panicking about toilet roll last year I was stressing because there were no lentils left on the shelves – we eat them every single day) were much more expensive in the UK store.  Spinach was more expensive; onions were more expensive.

   But despite all of this, the overall shop was still cheaper in the UK by 16.9%. 

I swapped the potatoes though.  Karen bought 2.5kg of Maris Pipers for £1.15.  The same potatoes in in Dublin were priced at €2.99.  Aldi had a kg of white potatoes on offer for €.49 so I bought them instead which had a big impact on the bill, making the Irish shop only 3% more expensive than the UK.

A couple of other things to note:

1)      I couldn’t get the chocolate brownie ice-cream that Karen got.  I picked up the very last vegan vanilla ice-cream in the store.  Please Aldi, jeep stocking this, it is fantastic - despite the fact that it is much more expensive in Ireland!

2)     Yesterday was Global Recycling Day.  I took great care at the end of my shop to remove as much packaging as possible.  And then I looked around for a recycling bin.  I couldn’t see one, so I asked a staff member where the recycling station was.  Apparently, Aldi have never had recycling stations?  Is that correct?  Aldi shopping is new to me so I’m not sure.

 

So overall, a good shop.  I also picked up some growbags for €1.99.  I missed them in Lidl last week.  Had some success with vegetables last year and will be trying again this year. 

Food you have grown yourself tastes much better, it is free from plastic and it is like printing your own money.

 

Have a lovely day and look out for our next shopping challenge!  We will be mixing things up a bit next week and it should be a lot of fun.

 

Check out our IGTV where we talkabout our shops

 

 

Supermarket Challenge Week 3 - Lidl Dublin and Essex

 Week 3 of our supermarket challenge didn't quite work as planned.  Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because we changed the day - Wednesdays can be funny days, you never can tell with a Wednesday, the weekend is still a long way away and we aren't thinking about weekend food or relaxing.  

Mid-week is also the day before the special offers change in a lot of stores.  

Our list was a bit different this week too because it contained a lot of the Veganuary specials, we wanted to see if they had been kept on.  

I wasn't sure if they had stocked them in Ireland at all because I stick to buying fruit, veg, carbs with some treats along the way as a rule.  Even though, our shops weren’t a success in terms of getting the products, they were interesting shops as both @yesdaveitsvegan and I @louisamoss had very different experiences. 

Full disclosure, I love Lidl.  I love Lidl because it's close-by.  I love Lidl because they have good specials on fruit and veg that changeover every week, they have coconut stick ice-creams that are delicious and healthy, they have competitively- priced, quality dates and nuts.  They have Fairtrade coffee and chocolate. I love Lidl because when I harass their customer service team they reply pronto and are generally helpful even if I'm being stroppy - yeah, it happens sometimes, I know it's hard to believe!

*edited to add, another reason I love Lidl is because it was the first supermarket in Ireland to sell competitively priced tinned kidney beans way back in the early 2000s. I used to drive to their Mullingar store to stock up once a month.  Then Tesco started selling them too.  But thanks for that Lidl!*

So here is the list that we had this week.

Almond Milk - I managed to buy this and noticed that they had a new barista milk range that I will go back for to try.  I don't usually buy Almond Milk cos environment, but I used this in the cauliflower soup I made yesterday, and it was great.  It cost €1.66 in Dublin.

I wasn't sure what a Round Lettuce was.  I Googled it and it seemed to be an Iceberg lettuce, so that's what I bought.  I should have rung my mum or checked with Karen because it's what we call here 'Butterhead Lettuce'. Totally lost in translation.  Iceberg lettuce was 89cents.

Vegan sausage rolls from the fridge section. They weren't available in either of the stores but what I noticed when I went to look for them was that the vegan section had been arranged nicely and there were loads of vegan burgers and sausages and vegan meats. I was really impressed.  There were quite a lot of prepared salads too and the guacamole was marked vegan.  Another win I thought. Apparently, the UK store was not as well laid out in this regard.  Look at Ireland, Team UK!

I looked for a vegan ploughman's sandwich and couldn't find any sandwiches that were suitable for vegans.  There was one egg sandwich that might have been okay for vegetarians.  But poor selection really unless you like eating dead chickens.  It felt weird for me even looking through the sandwich boxes.  No sandwiches available for Karen either in Essex.

*do other vegans get sad walking round supermarkets and seeing dead animal body parts in fridges being sold for as food? *

Next on the list was vegan coleslaw, I have bought this before to try it, but I make my own coleslaw usually so it's not a regular on my shopping list.  This wasn't available in either store, despite the rest of the excellent salad range in Lidl Dublin.

Tawny Tomatoes - I got them in Dublin, Karen couldn't get them in Essex.  They cost €2.19 for 250g. 

Neither of us managed to get the vegan berry ice-cream, sadly.

Cherries - the only item we both managed to buy and what a difference in price.  Sorry, there's no pic.  I've already eaten them!  Delicious but they would have tasted nicer if they were 99p instead of €2.79.

However, the cherries were on offer in the UK, and they weren't in Ireland.  So, you know, maybe they wouldn't normally be that much more expensive here.

Lidl Ireland had different offers and they were good offers, so I bought the lot and wish I'd bought more.

1kg rooster potatoes, celeriac, 250g baby plum tomatoes, 6 golden delicious apples, bag of pears, organic beetroot all for 49cents each.  I used 4 packets of the tomatoes for the soup I have made today, and they have cooked beautifully, soup is deep red and gorgeous tasting.  Please bring these back on special Lidl!

Lidl also had fresh herbs on offer - 59 cents instead of 99, so I stocked up on them.  I also had some Lidl vouchers to use from their app so got some blueberries for €1. 

Both Karen and I both bought the new Lidl vegan friendly beauty products.  These deserve a whole post of their own.  Thanks, Lidl Ireland, for confirming that all their own brand products are cruelty free.  We love this!  I like that the products are marked 'Vegan Friendly' as opposed to 'Vegan'.  I think it demonstrates an understanding of the vegan philosophy.  Well done Lidl.  

@yesdaveitsvegan and @louisamoss will be back with a different shopping list to Lidl next week so we can do a proper price compare. 

If you spot any good offers, please let me know!

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